Teach Soap

ok, i am new at this and barely know how to post so here goes:

i bought a base from a somewhat local supplier here in the deep south.
it is run by two men, and experience has proven to me that men lapse when it comes to details! Anyways, it was advertised as a luxury olive oil base. I have a lovely olive oil soap mold, and a lovely olive blossom fragrance oil. Knowing how nourishing olive oil is, and having made my very first cold processed batch of soap being castille, I was excited about the possibilities of marketing an olive oil kind of "line".

i asked customer service at this company about 4 or 5 times via email, phone and contact info on their website for a list of ingredients and uses of this product.

they kept promising but never delivered.

this base is kind of pasty and it has a grainy texture. it was a bit pricey; so my question to any on here who might know is this: once you have mixed the oil and the water phase in a creme, is there a way to add oil to 1) possibly emulsify what the grainy solids are in the base, and 2) add emolliency to this product which is less than desirable?

or, should i just cut my losses and use it myself......i have given up trying to get more info from this company.

thanks to all who give of their time to answer questions for all us newbies!

Sounds like their emulsion didn't get mixed long enough. The cooler portion of the lotion got thicker, hence the lumps. No lotion should be pasty. Do you have the ingredient list? Did they use a correct preservative?

If they haven't replied back by now, I would cut my losses.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Out of curiousity's sake, can you pm me the name? I'm looking at buying from different places, and I can't afford to spend my $ at a place with questionable practices!

Thanks a million!

_________________
Peggi

http://www.klamathriversfinest.etsy.com

thank you, soap buddy!

no, the website never had ingredients list. that is why i kept bugging
them. knowing the new fda law, i wanted to put that on the labeling.

i am wondering if i can heat up the base and add more oil

just because i am totally new to all of this so i wanted to to possibly
learn.

i just got catherine failor's book about cream soapmaking from BrambleBerry and it looks like you can "tweak" the recipe in so many ways.
i was not sure if this was true for lotions.

i have found that when i am bottling and mixing lotions using pre bought bases, when i am putting in the fragrance, color and micas, that if I put the base in the micro wave for about 30 seconds it is so very much easier to mix the color into it and achieve a homogenous mixture.

be careful with heating your bases - heat can render the preservative useless, or at least diminish the efficiency. a lot of preservatives have a very specific temperature range for usage.

as for the base itself - pasty and grainy and no ingredients list are bad things. i'd chuck it, and stop using that supplier. those are very basic things to have overlooked, and i wouldn't be comfortable trusting them after this, especially since they've left you with unanswered questions.

_________________
http://www.magichandsworkshop.com
http://www.magichands.etsy.com
http://www.magichandsworkshop.blogspot.com

If they never supplied you with an ingredient list, I would not give them any more of your business. What if someone has an allergy to a particular oil, how would you know if it's in there or not?

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.